NME Festival blog: The new ‘South Park’ game gets more difficult depending on the darkness of your character’s skin

September 8, 2017

The release of ‘South Park’s new computer game ‘The Fractured But Wholes’ sees a feature that makes gameplay more difficult for your character depending on the darkness of their skin.

As Eurogamer reports, a recent preview of the game showed that the ‘character creator’ part of the game shows that characters with lighter skin are classified as “easy”, while gameplay dark skin is “very difficult.”

“Don’t worry, this doesn’t affect combat,” says character Eric Cartman in the game. “Just every other aspect of your whole life.”

It is also reported that characters will also respond to the player’s gender identification -including male, female, and “other” (cisgender and transgender options are available).

“Last year was such a headfuck, and we were so happy when it was done,” creator Trey Parker told The Hollywood Reporter. “And we just wanted to go back to the kids, which we still do. But it’s also like, you can’t avoid [Garrison as Trump]. So, we are not actively putting it in, but we are not actively leaving it out. It’s the world we live in.”

Parker was speaking along with fellow South Park creator Matt Stone ahead of the show’s forthcoming 21st season, which premieres in the US on September 13. Stone confirmed that the new season won’t adopt the same narrative thread as last year as “it was just really hard” to produce on a weekly basis.